Month: May 2016

Get ready, cause things are about to get saucy, replete with facts, citations, and more facts and citations. You’re gonna be blown away by what you’re about to discover. And yup, we’re actually gonna be doing some old fashioned math and see if the numbers actually say what the media says they say. Guess what? They don’t.

That very CNN article quotes a CDC (Center for Disease Control) statistic that states firearm deaths are just a very close second to motor vehicle deaths. But those statistics are SO misleading.

That includes ALL deaths by firearm, including the justifiable returning of fire by police on a suspect AND such deaths as black on black and gang death–most of which is due to illegal gun sales. But are you ready for the real kicker? You’re not gonna believe this (and NO ONE tells you this):

Only 33% of gun deaths each year are due to homicide. And only 3% due to accident! Less than 3% are due to accidents. READ THAT AGAIN: less than 3%.

I now urge you to pay close attention to how many of those deaths each year are from gun-inflicted suicide. What’s the number I’m seeing? I’m seeing 41,000 suicide deaths each year. How many by gun? 21,000! TWENTY ONE THOUSAND! Over half the suicides each year in the USA are by gun, and that magic (actually tragic) number is 21,000.

Now wait. According to the CDC, how many TOTAL gun deaths are there each year? Just go back to that very same CNN study I mention above at the beginning of this article. The magic number? 33,636.

Let’s now do some simple math:
Total gun deaths per year MINUS
Total gun suicides each year =
Total accidental deaths or murders by gun each year.

Using the numbers we arrived at above (straight from the CDC), that is:
33,636 – 21,000 = 12,636.

So no we know that each year, 12,636 people die from either accidental discharge or intention murder by gun. That’s a lot less than the media wants you to know.

It’s the part of the entire searchable CDC database. Scroll down and select “Firearm”. Request the report. It will show you the yearly number of firearm injuries for the year 2014. What did you get? I got this number: 81,034.

But… (see statistics are always misleading if you’re not careful) if you use an additional filter to remove ALL instances of self-harm (i.e. suicide attempts), the number drops to (wait for it) a mind blowingly LOW number. What’s the number? 3,320. That’s IT. The number of yearly non-suicide related gun injuries each year by firearm is just 3,320. (Note: Even 3,320 is too many, so I say “just” with tragedy written all over it.)

Well, now we finally have some accurate data to work with, all of which we have already calculated above:
a) the number of people who die from accidental discharge OR murder by gun per year in the USA is about 12,636 people
b) the number of non-fatal injuries by gun discharge, not including those caused by suicide is about 3,320 people.

These numbers are a lot less scary now, aren’t they? Suddenly, you’re not so scared for your children to end up dead because of gun deaths. Suddenly, you realize that all this talk about how guns are the scourge of the earth and the cause of most of our lack of safety… is debunked.

But guess what folks? We’re not even close to done. Now let’s turn our head to drunk driving.

This author cites further statistics that today, in the USA, gun deaths outweigh motor vehicle deaths. But again, so misleading, because when used properly, a car doesn’t kill someone; when used properly, a gun does kill someone. That’s what it’s used for. These statistics also–like most of these stories–leave out the suicides and suicide attempts. The truth is, most of these motor vehicle deaths are caused not by INTENTIONAL murder attempts, but by sheer negligence caused by people being stupid, driving dangerously, or very very commonly (see below), driving DRUNK. Remember, above, however that the number of accidental gun deaths each year (according to the CDC) is less than 3%. Yet the MAJORITY of accidental motor vehicle deaths each year are accidental. Do you see the difference?

Before I go on, let’s first look at some other statistics, this time from MADD and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at http://www.madd.org/drunk-driving/about/drunk-driving-statistics.html

ON AVERAGE, TWO IN THREE PEOPLE WILL BE INVOLVED IN A DRUNK DRIVING CRASH IN THEIR LIFETIME.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “The Economic and Societal Impact Of Motor Vehicle Crashes, 2010.” National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, May 2014, DOT HS 812 013. http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812013.pdf.

EVERY DAY IN AMERICA, ANOTHER 27 PEOPLE DIE AS A RESULT OF DRUNK DRIVING CRASHES
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “Traffic Safety Facts 2014: Alcohol-Impaired Driving.” Washington DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2016. http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812231.pdf

ADULTS DRANK TOO MUCH AND DROVE ABOUT 121 MILLION TIMES PER YEAR – OVER 300,000 INCIDENTS OF DRINKING AND DRIVING A DAY.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Alcohol-Impaired Driving Among Adults — United States, 2012.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. August 7, 2015 / 64(30);814-817. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6430a2.htm

Did you get that last statistic? In 2014–the same year of the CDC statistics I cited above–there were 12,636 people killed due to accidental discharge OR murder by gun per year in the USA and 3,320 people injured by gun discharge, again excluding suicide attempts butttttt–in that very same year, 9,967 people were killed by drunk drivers and (are you ready) 290,000 were injured by drunk drivers. TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY THOUSAND PEOPLE PER YEAR.

And yet, everyone is worried about gun violence, the majority of deaths of which are caused by suicide? (Note: suicide is horrible and I’m going to address that below).

But do you see my point? There is a far FAR greater likelihood of you or a friend dying from a drunk driving incident or from self-inflicted suicide than from gun violence. Why? With drunk driving, the ‘weapons’ are ALL AROUND YOU. However, you are probably not often in an environment every day that puts you in the presence of someone with a loaded gun (unless you’re in law enforcement or have a gun in the home). And yet, every week when you drive, the odds are that you are driving on the road with someone who is drinking and driving, or just as bad, texting and driving. And if you decide to let your depression or that of a friend go unchecked, guess what: there is a higher likelihood of you ending up dead due to that than gun violence.

DON’T YOU REALIZE THIS? Doesn’t America realize this?

Why is everyone fighting so hard to destroy the second amendment when guns cause SO MANY FEWER INJURIES THAN DRUNK DRIVING? And why, when the number of deaths by drunk drivers per year is nearly exactly the same as intentional/accidental gun deaths, does the media and it seems everyone on the left decry gun deaths, but say nothing of suicide (which causes most of those gun deaths) or drunk driving (which causes nearly as many non-suicide related deaths as guns)?

Why aren’t we fighting to stop drunk driving? Why aren’t we putting these people behind bars and keeping them there? As a public defender, I represented SO MANY drunk drivers. It disgusted me. Not so much that they were arrested in the first place for drunk driving, but because they were REPEAT OFFENDERS. Three, four, five times. Why are these people even allowed on the streets? They have fired a loaded weapon (the moving car while under the influence) three, four, five times and yet we keep giving them probation which has no effect. We keep suspending their license, but most of them don’t care, and decide that driving is their fundamental right, so they drive again, and drunk, and again ended up as my client. We keep putting them in jail for 1 year, or 2, and they get out and guess what? Do it again, because they’re still drunks.

Worse: so many of these people arrested for drunk driving… are NOT drunks. They are ‘normal’ ‘good’ people. But you know what? &*(^ that argument. They are NOT good people. They are irresponsible people who should never again be able to drive. If you get arrested (and convicted) even ONCE of drunk driving, you should lose your license for live. If you are ever again caught driving, life imprisonment.

People balk when I say this, yet, the gun laws (which cause fewer injuries than drunk driving) are more strict than the current drunk driving laws. Why? Answer me this: why is someone immediately convicted of a felony (usually with imprisonment for at least three years) for illegally carrying a loaded gun in New York City without even firing it, but if you get pulled over for drunk driving in New York City (essentially firing a loaded weapon) you probably just get probation and at worst a temporary suspension? ARE THESE LAWMAKERS AND POLITICIANS IDIOTS? Answer: yes. On any given day in the United States, you are infinitely more likely to be hit by a drunk driver than you are shot by someone with a gun, and yet, the gun laws are ten times more strict than the drunk driving laws. Why, why, WHY?!

It all makes me so angry. If you combine deaths and injuries, there is no dispute that drunk driving is ultimately far more dangerous than guns.

And yet, the fight on the forefront of politics is to destroy the guns and the law abiding gun owners instead of targeting the pieces of s*** who think it’s okay to drive drunk; that it’s okay to drive buzzed. If you can’t control yourself, DO NOT DRINK AT ALL. That is called responsible. But no, let’s not focus on the over 200,000 injuries per year caused by drunk driving. Let’s instead focus on the guns that cause about 3000 injuries per year. Let’s focus on the guns that cause about 12,000 deaths per year, but let’s basically ignore the 9,000 deaths caused each year by drunk driving. What is wrong with everyone? Are they mad? No, I think a) they are stupid and simply like to believe what their idiot friend “the media” tells them, b) they are lazy and refuse to do their own research outside of their ‘go to’ sources, and c) they are power hungry and realize that by perpetuating the lies by hiding the truth, they can amass votes from the useful idiots who vote based on heart, not on facts.

As for suicide (I didn’t forget)–why are the anti-gun people not railing against suicide? Why don’t they even CARE that most of the gun deaths are due to suicide? Why do most Americans not know this? Why isn’t THIS plastered across CNN & FOXNews? Why don’t we know this? Why? Because it’s all political. They don’t care about the facts. They care about politics.

Me? I care about the average of 22 fellow service members who kill themselves every day. Visit http://www.22kill.com for more info. I assure you: the gun is not the cause of their suicide. It’s merely the tool, and if not a gun, there are many other ways of making it happen that are just as quick and effective. Guns don’t cause suicide: DEPRESSION DOES. And yet, who do you hear in politics railing against depression? No one, because it’s not political.

Well wake up people and stop being so stupid as to believe everything your idiot friend tells you. Do some research. It took me a mere three hours of research to get to the bottom of this controversy, and I’ve proven—beyond a reasonable doubt—that the argument against guns is so misleading. Do I think gun deaths and injuries are horrible? Absolutely, without question. Is it something to focus on? Of course. But why focus on the small potato when we could focus on the far bigger one:

If we simply stop drunk driving and stop depression, we will save more lives and reduce injuries exponentially more than if we stop gun sales.

What I have proven is that guns are not the problem; politics is.

So for all your anti-gun friend: send them the link to this post. Let them see for themselves the DIVISIVE TRUTH of the matter.

Okay, I’m tired of hearing people comparing Trump to Hitler. Let me put this argument to rest, once and for all. And for the record, although I’m Christian, my dad is a stingy Jewish WWII vet, I had a ‘sort-of’ Barmitzvah, and I love shopping at B&H in Manhattan for all my filmmaking needs thanks to the entrepreneurial prowess of the local Hasidics who created the go-to destination for filmmakers. With that out of the way, let’s get down to business.

FIRST: Let’s start with the silly basics: Hitler was Austrian; Trump is American. Totally different nationalities. Bet those calling Trump Hitler didn’t know Hitler was Austrian, did they? Yup, raised in Vienna too. And this is basic history about Hitler. SOURCE: http://www.annefrank.org/en/Education/Teachers-portal/Pupilsquestions/Why-did-Hitler-hate-Jews/

SECOND: Hitler wanted to banish all Jews by eliminating them; Trump wants to restrict the immigration of Muslims until they have been vetted to ensure they do not have malicious intentions against our countrymen. Big difference. HUGE difference. While it can be argued that it was not Hitler’s initial intention to actually murder the Jews in the concentration camps, using this argument as a parallel with Trump is flawed. First, Hitler was irrefutably anti-Jew. He hated them all and felt they were inferior. Trump, however is not anti-Muslim and does not feel Muslims are inferior: Trump is merely anti radicalized Muslim, as I am, and as any sane American should be. There is a big difference between “all Muslims”, and “those Muslims trying to kill us”. Trump wants to prevent the latter group from killing our families, and that may require some investigation. Hitler wanted to ensure all Jews were gone. ALL Jews. See the difference? SOURCE: http://www.historytoday.com/alan-farmer/hitler-and-holocaust

THIRD: But Trump said, “DEPORT ALL MUSLIMS!” Actually, Trump never said any such thing. Here is the exact transcript from what he said in September of 2015:

A Trump supporter said, “We have a problem in this country, it’s called Muslims. We know our current president is one. You know, he’s not even an American. Birth certificate, man.” At that point, Trump said “Right.” The man added: “We have training camps … where they want to kill us. That’s my question: When can we get rid of them?

“Trump’s response?

“We’re going to be looking at a lot of different things. You know, a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there. We’re going to look at that and plenty of other things,” Trump responded.

He NEVER said he was going to get rid of the Muslims. Never. He merely responded to the multi-part question that preceded it. Look at the question. “When can we get rid of them?” Many news pundits used that word “them” to prove that Trump wants to deport all Muslims. But look at the statement preceding it: the man asking the question is talking about the training camps, according to Trump’s answer. When can we get rid of them? Trump clearly thought the guy talking wanted to know when we could get rid of the training camps, not all the Muslims. And heck, maybe that’s what the guy asking the questions meant too.

I challenge anyone to find a video of Trump saying, “We’re going to deport all the Muslims.” It was never said. Case closed.

Need more proof? As recently as March 2016, major news outlets have been forced to retract their stories stating that Trump stated all Muslims would be deported. Here’s one from Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/trackers/2016-03-11/trump-says-he-d-deport-a-lot-of-muslims

Does Trump want to deport a lot of Muslims? Yes, he does, and rightly so. Nearly every group attempting to kill us via terrorism in the last ten years has been Muslim. Ask any apologist to find any other religions conducting terror on the scale of Muslims and they can’t. Or they cite lame wikipedia articles about The Lord’s Resistance Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Resistance_Army trying to show Christian terrorism when even a quick read of the article states that the USA doesn’t even consider this group a terrorist group anymore. Why? Think about it.

Bottom line: Trump wanting to deport all the Muslims who are affiliated with terror groups does not make him Hitler; it makes him the only man currently running for president who I trust defending this country.

FOURTH: “But wait! Trump DOES want to deport all the Mexicans!”, they cry. “He IS like Hitler!” Actually, no. See, I’m a lawyer. In law school, my job was to analyze and interpret case law so that in court, I could best represent my clients. As a public defender, I did represent some truly terrible people who most clearly broke the law. And I defended them, yes. But you see, I never defended them for what they did. I never defended their breaking the law. I merely defended their rights and ensured justice was served in accordance with the laws as they currently stood. If creatively interpreting the law and arguing the facts in interpretative ways allowed me to get my client a decreased sentence, I did so. Was that immoral? No, I was doing my job.

My job as a defense attorney was to exploit the system for my client’s benefit–and that is all within the law. If the state could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that my client did what they claim he did: sorry, not guilty. That’s the system we have, and I represented my client to the utmost within those parameters, and I promise that you would wish that I would do the same for you if you were accused of a heinous crime as well.

In most cases, though, guess what: my arguments fell on deaf ears. The facts were the facts and the best I could do was negotiate a plea. The vast majority of my clients ended up with plea bargains and reduced sentences, but here’s the key: THEY WERE STILL DEEMED GUILTY BY PLEA BARGAIN. They admitted their guilt, and why? They were guilty, and the evidence–DNA, prints, video, witnesses–more often than not proved it and they knew that a plea of a lesser conviction would be safer than going to trial and going to prison for years, or worse, decades.

My point: The Mexicans (and Guatemalans, Ecuadorians, etc.) coming over here and staying here illegally… ARE GUILTY. They have no case whatsoever. They can’t claim refugee status because South America, while a mess, is not THAT big of a mess. Unless you can prove that the government is targeting you specifically, or that you in particular are in grave threat of danger, you can’t claim refugee status. The vast majority are here illegally with no defense whatsoever to stand on. THEY BROKE THE LAW. I don’t care if you’re a ‘birther baby’ and your parents are here illegally: sorry, the law is the law, and the law allows those BORN HERE to be citizens; not the parents. So sorry parents. It may seem ‘cruel’, but I argue that what’s cruel is this birther law that allows these families to get into this mess in the first place. Either the entire family becomes citizens (which I don’t support) or no one becomes a citizen (which is a far more rational and logical law). But hey, the law right now is the law, so I’m sorry: if you came to America to have your baby and you (parents) stay here illegally: shame on you parents!

I will write far more about this illegal immigration situation soon, but for now, we’re just talking about Trump: wanting to deport these illegal immigrants is not racist; it’s being presidential. That’s the job of the president: to enforce the laws. Congress makes them. The Supreme Court interprets them. The President ensures they are executed. So until the law changes, Trump would merely be doing what every president since the beginning of this country should have been doing: KICKING OUT THOSE WHO LEGALLY DO NOT BELONG HERE.

I have so many foreign friends who spent years navigating the difficult process of getting a green card and becoming an American… the legal way. When I moved to Europe, I went (and stayed there) the legal way. When I moved to China, I went (and stayed there) the legal way. To me, every illegal is a slap in the face to those who worked their asses off to get here the responsible and honest way. A friend of mine (who decided no longer to be my friend) lambasted me when I said this to her. She said, “You are so privileged to grow up in the USA! You have no idea what it’s like in the rest of the world.” First, I do, having lived, worked, or traveled in some really rotten places in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Second, THAT IS NO EXCUSE! Just because I’m having trouble paying my rent, that’s not an excuse to break the law and steal. Just because I’m having a rough time, that’s no excuse to break a perfectly justifiable and good law (immigration law). Anyone who argues that breaking the law to illegally enter and/or stay in a country has got serious moral problems. It’s not that I’m lacking compassion, it’s that everyone else lacks common sense.

The best solution to the immigration problem?–I’ll save that for later, but let it be clear that Donald Trump is not racist simply because he wants to enforce an extremely logical immigration law designed to keep us safe and ensure jobs for those here legally.

FIFTH: “Yeah, but Trump hates women,” they cry, so he’s like Hitler. “He hates so much!” How so? Because he criticizes Rosie O’Donnell? Because he hates Hillary Clinton? Because he believes a baby inside a woman’s body is a person? Because he believes that Hillary Clinton should have disavowed her husband after the way he treated her?

Try as you may, sorry, none of these action or statements make him a woman hater. Trump has raised some truly well behaved and polite children. Have you ever heard of Ivanka or Tiffany bad mouthing him? Why would that amazing woman Melania marry him if he’s such a jerk? Why haven’t his ex-wives come out saying horrible things about him? Answer: he’s not anti-woman.

“Yeah, but he went on all these dates with women when he was younger!” All I can say is, so? Is going on dates with many woman a clear indication that he hates woman? Um, to me, seems like he likes women. ;D

LOOK: I can go on and on. Trump is not Hitler, and to even suggest such is an insult to the millions of Jews who died in concentration camps all around Europe. Trump is not Hitler, and even if he were, our amazing country would prevent anything like that ever happening again. God bless our Founding Fathers and the separation of powers: there is virtually no way to imagine how Trump could in any way institute anything on the scale and horror of what Hitler did, even if he wanted to (and he doesn’t). Congress would never in a million years approve any such crazy measure of mass executions.

So rest assured, Trump is not Hitler, and his presidency would not be the 4th Reich. Keine Sorge, Mein Freund, Keine Sorge. 😀

FIRST, HERE ARE SOME FACTS FROM THE JOURNAL CYBER-PSYCHOLOGY, BEHAVIOR, & SOCIAL NETWORKING (citation below):• Those who post on Facebook typically tend to show only the good things going on in their lives
• Posters on Facebook tend to inflate the ‘goodness’ of things going on in their lives
• Readers on Facebook tend to read about others ‘great lives’ and feel envious, which in turn leads to depression—this envy is unwarranted, however, because Facebook personas are one-sided. This effect is greater when a reader has Facebook friends who he doesn’t know well or doesn’t hang out with often.
• All users who spend more time on Facebook reading others’ posts, making comments, liking posts, and checking to see if others commented or liked their posts are more envious and depressed than those who use Facebook less, or who do not participate in these activities as much.

Source: Chou, H. G. & Edge, N. (2012). “They are happier and having better lives than I am: the impact of using Facebook on perceptions of others’ lives”, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, & Social Networking, 15(2), 117-124.

SECOND, AS SOMEONE WITH A PhD IN PSYCHOLOGY, HERE ARE SOME OF MY SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS:

• Spend less time on Facebook, and turn off email and text message notifications
• Do not log on to Facebook when you are feeling sad, depressed, or lonely.
• When you ARE on Facebook, do not spend a lot of time reading the posts of others—the more posts you read of others in your newsfeed, the more envious and depressed you are liable to become.
• If you do read the posts of others, do NOT presume that just because they post happy pictures of themselves doing fun things, surrounded by smiling people, that they are happier and live better than you. A picture is worth a thousand words, but in this case, you don’t have a complete picture at all.

REMEMBER THIS: EVERYONE has problems. No one is completely happy. And in my opinion, Facebook is the tabloid for the masses: do not believe anything you read or see: everyone is merely trying to market themselves as better and more successful than they really are. Even me, when I had a Facebook account! 🙂